Posted on 04/16/2007 4:59:30 PM PDT by doug from upland
ADMIN MOD: although this was on a blogspot, it is important news. Will you please move it to NEWS/ACTIVISM. Thanks.
Dozens massacred in gun free zone. AGAIN!
The news is still coming in but another tragedy has taken place on a school campus in the United States at Virginia Technical University. A gunman, in the early morning hours entered a dormitory and started shooting students. Several hours later he returned and walked into a second building and did the same thing. Almost three dozen are dead as a result.
I had a horrified fear in the pit of my stomach the moment I read this story. I suspected the reason that this slaughter would could on for so long. And a partial answer is found in the fate of a piece of legislation in the Virginia legislature known as HB 1572. You no doubt haven’t heard about it.
The legislation went to the House Committee on Militia, Police and Public Safety. And the vote was a quick one. The process was over almost before it began. A spokesman for Virginia Tech was thrilled at the results. He said: “I’m sure the university community is appreciative of the General Assembly’s actions because this will help parents, students, faculty and visitors feel safe on campus.” Wonderful!
People at Virginia Tech were going to feel safe on campus. The legislation in question didn’t pass. It failed. It failed the first hurdle in the legislature. It was legislation that would have allowed students and faculty at Virginia Tech and other universities to carry firearms if they had a valid concealed handgun permit.
Virginia Tech was famous for being a “gun free zone”. In June of 2005 a student, who had a gun permit, had a firearm on him when he went onto campus. He was disciplined as a result. At that time the governing board of the university approved another policy which made things loud and clear, they would never allow employees or students to carry firearms for self defense. The governing board openly, publicly, loudly, announced to the world they had disarmed every person on the campus.
Every person except, of course, any person who didn’t mind violating the law because he was going to break far more laws that day. And that is precisely what happened. When a person is intent on murder then violating a gun free zone is of little consequence to them. It will not and can not stop that person. It is of major consequence to the law abiding students and faculty, people who have no intentions to harm anyone and want to live peacefully with one another. The ramifications of violating the rules can be high for them. They could lose their job or be expelled.
So they abide the law and disarm. They are stripped of the ability ot defend themselves and must rely on the state and the state alone. That the gunman was able to walk back on campus two after his first shooting spree tells you something about relying on the state for your safety.
The killer walked into the the West Ambler Johnston dormitory looking for a girl in particular. He casually lined up his victims in a row and began shooting them. He could afford to be casual, he was pretty confident that no dormroom door would open up and an armed student would exit to put an end to his actions. The only person on campus, at that moment, who really knew he was safe was the killer. He was the only one armed. The university made sure of it.
All the school could do was tell students to hide and hope they weren’t found. The campus apparently was a real no gun zone since no one on campus appeared able to stop the killing. Students in the dorm were not evacuated by the school but told to stay put and go into lockdown. One girl in the dormitory said: “They had us under lockdown. They temporarily lifted the lockdown, the gunman shot again.”
And, pardon my language, but someone has to ask what the f*** the police were doing during all this? If the first shooting takes place at 7:15 and then again at 9:15 in the engineering building, this means the killer had two hours to wander the campus.
While details are still sketchy this report has some disturbing implications. It appears that the bulk of the killing took place in the classroom two hours after the first killings. Police were on the scene. Doing what? The gunman can walk from the dorm to the engineering building, all the way on the opposite side of the 2,600 acre campus, and kill there two hours later without anyone stopping him. One student complained about this: “That’s pretty ridiculous and meanwhile, while they’re sending out the e-mail [telling students of the first shooting], 22 more people got killed.”
According to the local police chief there was only one death from the dormitory shooting. It that remains to be true that would mean that something like 29 people were killed two hours later by the same gunman on the same campus. If the police were unable to defend students after a two hour warning that a killer was on campus shooting people then just how much time do they need to get their act together? And the school’s response was to tell students in the classrooms to lock the doors and huddle in the middle of the room. Brilliant! Why not just have them wear uniforms with targets on their backs.
These are the people that the students MUST trust to defend their lives because these people stripped them of the ability to defend themselves.
The school was oblivious to the facts. One press report states: “A gasp could be heard at a campus news conference when the police chief said at least 20 people had been killed. Previously, only one person was thought to have been killed.” They were holding a press conference to state one had been killed when they learned it was 20, the number is now set in the low 30s.
Hearing a student now. She was in German class. Shooter was an Asian. Peeked into the class a few times, then he came in.
A simple, old-fashioned system of tornado warning sirens on campus could be used to precipitate a lockdown, and everyone within earshot would know. Even those who are hearing impaired could get the message from those near them.
Pretty cheap and low tech, doubtless not necessarily pretty, but I'd take crude but effective any day.
The ideal would be for those who have a concealed carry permit, like the ones listed in the database the Roanoake Times columnist posted (not very far from VA Tech), to be able to carry on campus as well.
Otherwise, there is just a huge people hunting preserve for any jihadi or other wacko everywhere there is a college campus.
Hi Doug Just a thought. if this is terorisim what if this is a decoy get us all looking at this then out of no where wamo with something much bigger elsewhere or Am I just out there ?
BTTT
Can you post the picture form Olaf, witht he two women, and it shows one woman on the left cowering in fear and the other half, a trained, armed woman resisting attack? Thanks,
NM
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